


sañjīvana

by weaslayyy



Series: vivaham [4]
Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22031743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaslayyy/pseuds/weaslayyy
Summary: bijjaladeva is dying of mysterious causes: sivagami and devasena are on the case!
Relationships: Amarendra Baahubali/Devasena, Devasena & Sivagami (Baahubali)
Series: vivaham [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1102683
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19
Collections: Margazhi in Mahishmati 2019





	sañjīvana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmbidextrousArcher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmbidextrousArcher/gifts).



“You are not supposed to be here,” Sivagami, Queen Mother of Mahishmati says in a voice meant to be obeyed. Of course, as is usual these days, she is not. 

“What my husband does not know will not hurt him,” Devasena, wife to the Emperor, Empress in her own right, responds, waving away Sivagami’s rightful concern. “It is not my fault that he clucks more these days like a mother hen than the warrior I know him to be.” Devasena’s hand falls easily to the curve of her belly, to the root of every disagreement that has rocked the palace these last nine months. 

Sivagami sighs. “My son is not a chicken for worrying about your health.” It is a sentence she had not expected to become a refrain, and yet here she is chanting again only three hours past dawn. “Is he with--” 

“Your husband? Yes. It looks like the former Prince-Consort took a turn for the worse last night as well, so perhaps the gods will be gracious and my child won’t have to suffer his grand uncle’s evil-eye after all.” 

Two months ago, nay even one month, Sivagami might have glared -- such sentiments, however true, have always been meant for those places where total privacy can be guaranteed, or complete drunkenness used as an excuse. But three months into Prince Bijjaladeva’s rapid, loud, and offensive decline and not even Sivagami can muster up the royal demeanor to chastise a woman Bijjaladeva last demanded be “put down, before she bears her mongrel husband’s whelp and dooms this dynasty for good!” 

For a very brief, very long moment, Sivagami had looked into the eyes of her darling Baahu and known that if she only deigned to lower her chin slightly in approval she would be able to witness her own husband’s death by smothering. It was more difficult than she will ever admit to keep her head perfectly straight, to watch Baahu snarl and walk out, to watch him walk back in hours later in order to relieve Sivagami of her watch by Bijjaladeva’s side and allow her to finally sleep. 

It is true, she thinks, her husband’s passing will not be mourned. Least of all by his wife. Yet, the poisoning of any member of the royal family is a matter in dire need of investigation, and all matters pertaining to the family remain under Sivagami’s purview. If said sleuthing removes herself from the sick-room of a man that only gets more acerbic as he dies, so much the better. 

But first -- “Devasena, you did not --” 

Devasena laughs. “My mother, if I had wanted to kill my husband’s uncle I certainly would not have chosen a means that would ensure my spending the last few months of my pregnancy in Mahishmati, caring for the maggot as he died. I would have gone for my knife.” Her lips curl, as she looks straight into Sivagami’s eyes. “I still might.” 

Devasena, as always, speaks the truth. Sivagami expected nothing less.

\-----

Sivagami’s husband, in the years since his nephew’s ascension to the throne, has been known to be found -- more often than not -- in the company of the palace courtesans, each girl young enough to be his daughter. 

“Sisters,” Devasena calls out when she and Sivagami enter, “come quickly! My mother Sivagami and I have some questions to ask.”   
  
Sivagami raises an eyebrow. Devasena only shrugs. “My husband is well aware that his own parents were not a love-match, and that his father developed a reputation for habituating this part of the palace.” 

Sivagami winces. She had paid good money to have those stories dealt with before Baahu came of an age to understand what they meant. 

“It is very possible that some of these women might share his blood,” Devasena continues, oblivious as always to the torment her words have on Sivagami’s equanimity. “As my husband has sworn to me to look to no woman without my prior permission, I have no reason for fear or hatred. And besides,” a bit of the demonic enters the quirk of Devasena’s lips, “no Kuntalan dance instructor has been half as helpful as my sisters here, and not only at teaching me how to move my feet.” 

“Lady Devasena!” At least this time it is not Sivagami raising the alarm. It appears the good women the Mahishmati Royal Family keeps as courtesans are equally devoted to protecting the Family’s good name from the Queen Mother to-be bent on destroying it. 

“My Lady Sivagami,” pleads one with folded hands, “you will have to forgive our Lady Devasena, she is at such a delicate time and we fear it has loosened her tongue more than she herself would like.” Sivagami looks her up and down, trying to see if she can identify any of Bijjaladeva’s features in the girl’s profile, any of Vikramadeva. She is beautiful, Sivagami finally decides on, and with a pleasing voice as well. Nothing else is of consequence. 

“My dear --” 

“Radhika, my Lady,” 

“My dear Radhika,” Sivagami says, “you forget that I once spent a whole month in our Lady Devasena’s direct company, before her official marriage to my son the Emperor. If her tongue is indeed loose, I believe it must have been so from birth.” 

For a moment, Radhika seems terrified, gaze swinging from Devasena to Sivagami back to Devasena until Devasena rolls her eyes, allowing herself to be led by two girls to a chair that manifests out of thin air. 

“If the Queen Mother has not yet had me executed for my temerity, I think I will be allowed to bless her with her first grandchild. Besides, I have been reliably informed that she loves me, in spite of my loose tongue.” 

“Some might even say because,” Sivagami adds with a small, wry smile. Devasena’s face splits open in delight, glowing in the way only the heavily, happily pregnant can accomplish. 

“Radhika,” Devasena demands, right hand now carrying a glass of something where it had, moments ago, been empty, “did any of you poison my mother’s bastard husband?” 

Sivagami allows herself a moment of weakness, strides to where Devasena sits, snatches her glass and downs it. Wine, and a very good vintage too -- meant to be savored rather than swallowed down like a barbarian. 

“Devasena...” she tries, knowing that she will fail, “we have had this conversation before.” 

“No one here truly believes your husband is anything but the unfortunate first product of the royal line, Mother. We can all see the way he resembles his grandfather’s portrait, which he so helpfully displays outside his quarters.” 

This much is true, Sivagami acknowledges. “Radhika, we came to enquire as to what my husband might have done the last night he was here, before he took ill. Does anyone remember what he might have eaten, or drank?” 

Another girl, equally beautiful as Radhika snorts. “I think the better question would be what did he not eat and drink?” She breaks off into a mumble, which Sivagami vaguely hears as something that perhaps is best left to lower, less decipherable registers this girl has wisely chosen. Devasena, of course, is just a little closer, has excellent hearing, and no such compunctions. 

“Lecherous pig, eh? I have always thought so too.” Sivagami barely restrains herself from rolling her eyes. “But here,” Devasena says, “that doesn’t help much with our investigation.” 

Devayani purses her lips, glancing to a girl behind her who nods and takes a step forward.

“To be honest, Queen Mother, I was surprised to hear the news of the Prince Consort’s illness. The last night he visited, he had seemed quite jubilant -- and quite certain that it would be _your_ last night alive.” 

Devasena gasps, turning to Sivagami at the exact moment Sivagami turns to her. 

“You can’t think--”

Sivagami only shakes her head. 

\----

“If you will grant me the liberty,” Amarendra Baahubali, Emperor of Mahishmati, sovereign from the mountains of Kuntala to the great sea whisper-shrieks, disguised as a palace peon, “I am having problems reconstructing certain aspects of this chronology.” 

“Which chronology,” asks Sivagami in turn, “the one which ends with my husband dying after having accidentally drunk the poisoned wine he meant for another? Or the other one, which --”

“The one which involves my beloved, _royal_ wife currently giving birth incognito behind the house of Mahishmati’s finest _poison_ -maker, yes!” 

“Ah,” Sivagami says, just in time for Baahu to wince at the sound of another of Devasena’s shrieks carrying all the way to the porch they both are sitting on, “of course. It is certainly a tale you are entitled to know, given that you --”  
  
“Are my wife’s dutiful husband, and my child’s father? I should hope so! Not to mention that I am _also_ \--” 

“Baahu, don’t yell at your mother. It is unseemly.”

It is also not something Sivagami would have ever dreamed her darling son capable of a few years past, but Baahu, it seems, is not taking imminent fatherhood in the decorous, dignified manner befitting a man of his status. Still, Sivagami feels there are concessions to be made for when one is the son of a woman who had herself died in the birthing bed. His fears for Devasena all these months, born of this central, defining fear, have animated every one of the pitched battles that roiled the palace until Sivagami’s husband’s illness. The situation as it is, Sivagami assumes, cannot be helping matters. Her son, who has never allowed more than three sips of liquor to pass his lips, has allowed himself to partake in nearly half a box of their host’s chewing tobacco in the hour since he arrived. 

“Former poison-maker,” Sivagami says. “Ratnagiri has been dead for months it seems, and his son is determined to stay firmly within the realm of shastric medicine.” 

Baahu, duly chastened as his wife never seems to be, only raises an eyebrow. “Then we will have to find a new poison purveyor. What a shame.” 

“Son,” a woman calls out, “you have a son!” 

Sivagami’s eyes overflow. The Empire will have its Prince. 

Baahu is already charging in, hand pulling Sivagami to her feet and dragging her behind him. “My wife,” he gasps, with at least enough of his wits about him to not go bleating the name of his beloved and reveal them as royalty. “How long does she have left?” 

“How long-- your wife is healthy, child! Gods willing, she will live longer than you!” The midwife called from three houses has hands still stained with mess of birth, Ratnagiri’s wife standing behind her cradling the infant. In the palace there would be priests deeming the birthing chamber an area of pollution, drawing a line in front that could not be crossed. Baahu would have been pacing the length of his own chambers, waiting to drop jewels in the waiting palms of a servant-slave tasked with delivering the news of a safe birth, and bringing back his sedate inquiries after the mother’s health. 

Here, wearing the clothes of a palace worker, Baahu falls to his knees at the side of Devasena’s cot, tips forward, and weeps. Devasena, still soaked in sweat, meets Sivagami’s gaze in surprise, hand only slightly shaky rising to pet her husband’s hair as he sobs with enough strength to shake the bed-frame. 

“Darling,” she says softly, “I didn’t --”   
  
Devasena does not lie. She knew, just as Sivagami did, of Baahubali’s fears. They simply hadn’t realized the extent to which they had consumed him all these months, apparently convinced that he would lose his wife at the same moment he gained a child. He has fussed, fought, even made demands that had Devasena threatening to cut her wedding thread and swim back to Kuntala on her own. To see him weep, when Sivagami had never even seen him do so as a child -- Sivagami feels her heart crack for shame. 

“He told me,” Baahu cries, shifting forward so that he can bury himself in the crook of Devasena’s neck, “every day of my life he told me that I killed my mother, and every day since you ....” 

Baahu swallows, and Sivagami finds that she has to look away. She could not bring herself to ask Baahu what, exactly, his uncle has spoken to him these last months he has been on his death-bed. Royal protocol mandates that one of the family be with Sivagami’s husband at all times, and with Bhalla off on campaign it fell to Sivagami and Baahu to divide between themselves the hours in which her husband lay awake. Devasena, after the first week, had set up a second bed in the very corner of the room and slept when Bijjaladeva slept, demanding to be woken only if the man was, indeed, on the very threshold of death. Baahu, too scandalized to sleep in his uncle’s rooms yet equally fearful of allowing Bijjaladeva such extended time in the presence of his beloved, was found more often than not propped up against Devasena’s bed, carding his fingers through her hair like any of the love-sick fools from his favorite childhood stories. 

“He told you that I would die too, bleeding out in the same bed that had taken your mother,” Devasena says, voice almost too thin to sound so hard. Sivagami looks up and sees Devasena’s eyes glittering with tears equally born of rage as of her deep, boundless love. She leans down, hand brushing away Baahu’s hair to lay a kiss at his brow. “He lied. As you can see, my love, I am very much alive.” 

Ratnagiri’s wife comes to stand next to Sivagami, wordlessly asking if Sivagami would like to relieve her of her precious burden. Sivagami’s grandson is as perfect as his father had seemed all those years ago, perhaps even more now for being the product of the two best-beloveds of Sivagami’s most secret of hearts. He does not cry, as other infants do, merely gazes at the world from Sivagami’s arms. 

In this moment, Sivagami is fiercely, brilliantly glad to be alive. Her husband languishes alone in the palace that he has always seen as both his prison and his liberation -- far away stands Sivagami, cradling the future of the empire as her heart seems to overflow from a type of love she can barely begin to describe. 

“Ratnagiri died, months ago, but before he did, he was approached by your uncle’s men, disguised.” Devasena’s gaze is tender as she turns her husband’s face towards her own. “He was contracted to make one final potion, of sufficient strength to kill a woman.” 

It is one thing to suspect one’s husband of murder, quite another, Sivagami finds, to have such a suspicion confirmed. She looks down at the baby she cradles, and swears that she will spend this second life she has been granted by the gods entirely devoted to creating a world easier for him than it was for his parents, for herself. In front of her, Baahu makes some kind of gasp that is at the same time a growl, his body twitching as if it wants to rise. Devasena’s hand pushes slightly at the crown of his head she cradles, and he sinks back without a word, cheek resting dutifully against her collarbone. 

“Ratnagiri gave the men 2 bottles of wine for your uncle to share with his wife, one poisoned, and one not. He told the men that the smaller one was for your mother.” 

“He lied,” Sivagami breathes. Devasena smiles. 

"We are loyal to the crown," Ratnagiri's wife says, tone earnest, at Sivagami's side. "We know who was responsible for this last generation of fortune." 

Devasena continues: “Given the royal family’s hereditary strength, the amount that might have killed you instantly has instead resulted in our three month ordeal. Still-” 

“He will die,” Sivagami says, confirms at last. It is a relief, she realizes, to know that he really will. Devasena nods. 

“He already has,” Baahu says absently from the crook of Devasena's neck, before suddenly rocking backwards, eyes wide, before Devasena can think to clutch him to her breast. “The baby?” Devasena gasps, hand grabbing onto Baahu’s shoulder as she attempts to lever herself upright as well. 

“What?” Without thinking, Sivagami takes three steps, handing the child to his mother only moments before collapsing on the cot herself, all of them ignoring the creak it makes at having to support both of their weight. 

“He died right as the man you sent was telling me where to find you. I was so worried for Devasena that I hardly know if I even informed the Ministers before I left.” Baahu is on his knees now, one arm supporting his wife while another is laid along the length of his son’s body, fingers gently caressing the hair already so much like his own at that age. For all the months that the pair has had to come to terms with the fact that they would become parents, Sivagami thinks that it is only now that they realize what it is like to have a son. 

Sivagami is a widow now, she supposes, one of those women cursed by the fates to not die a wedded woman. Tomorrow she will have to conduct the necessary rituals, give up her beloved colored silks for thin white cotton. With her blood son off in lands far away, and no natal family to call her own, Sivagami is technically, legally, wretchedly alone. 

“Oh Mother,” Devasena whispers, one of her hands reaching out to grasp Sivagami’s, to pull her closer so that they can all look at Devasena’s son. “Is not your grandson the most beautiful child you have ever seen? What shall we name him?” 

Sivagami closes her eyes. 

“Mahendra,” she says after a time, the words barely making it past the lump suddenly closing her throat. “After the Great God who has given us so much.” 

Never, in all of her years, has Sivagami felt so blessed. 

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i hope you like at least parts of this!! happy holidays/margazhi <3 <3 
> 
> (as .... is usual now apparently, i am refusing to write for baahubali canon and instead am adding to my own happily ever after verse. where is bhalla? not here at the moment! will i maybe develop this premise, where a heavily pregnant devasena and sivagami go sleuthing to discover who poisoned biju while baahu attempts to keep everyone safe, into the long fic it deserves? maybe? is this almost 3k of me just tying whatever immediately comes to mind with WAY too many commas ??? yes) 
> 
> please read and review/comment!! love you all !!!!


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